slow saturday

Things have settled down this past week but lots of progress has been made. Beth and I found a house we love and put an offer in Thurs morning. We got a counter offer last night and we've countered back. It's exciting to think we may own our first home soon, not to mention have almost twice the space we have now. Beth will have an entire room dedicated to her jewelry business which she needs. I will have an area for my workshop/bike room and we won't be sharing the kitchen with my dirty bikes anymore. We are trying not to get too excited as there are still a few more hurdles to get over before we are the official owners. If we do get this house, there will definitely be a deck party or too... it's in close riding distance from the Yazoo tap room so Thurs night trips could be in order!

Work has been steady but much more manageable this week. I ended up not going back to work on the Gospel project so that is over for now I think. I worked on a couple tracking session with some country artist, Joe Nichols and the Gatlin Bros, and recorded some members of the Fisk Choir for a Phil Vassar song. More tough times at another recording studio in Nashville. The Sound Kitchen, in Cool Springs, has let their studio manager and their only tech go. This is total deja-vu for me based on how Emerald Studio's slowly died before my eyes. It's a changing industry for sure. I hope the studio scene in Nashville can adapt and that the labels continue to trust the producers enough to not cripple them with small budgets. The days of large studios with 5+ recording rooms are almost gone. Now it's working in full blown home studios, and small converted houses where the studios are keeping the lowest overhead possible.

Not much going on on the mountain bike front. I'm still working with Quiring on the geometry of my new bike. Took a few weeks off the bike due to work but got back out this past week. I met up with Chris "Mr. Clean" Cooper and Kelly "old Rebel" Benward and Jeff "Riggs" Scott and headed down to Arnold Air Force base to ride AEDC. I was a bit reluctant to go since my only other AEDC experience wasn't enjoyable and I wasn't sure how my body would respond to 15 miles of SS after 3 weeks of couch surfin'. I couldn't of been happier as we pedaled back in to the parking lot after 14 super fun miles! I had a blast! The trail was in great shape, really actually too dry and dusty. We had a great crew of even matched riders so we kept a good pace the entire ride.

This was my first ride on my new Salsa big sweep bars. The ride was definitely different than with my Mary's. I switched from a 90mm stem to a 110 which maybe a bit long. These Salsa bars are super wide...a full 28". I'd already ridden Hammy with them on a friend's 29er so I started with my grips at about 26.3" but hadn't cut the bars down yet. Even being careful I still clipped 2 or 3 trees but thankfully didn't go down ever. The bars still feel a bit wide but I'm gonna keep experiementing. I've cut them down to 26.3" for now but will hold off to do any more cutting until the new bike arrives.

I'm not sure if it was the new cockpit setup or me just feeling good but I was climbing really well. I had a lot of traction which really helped but I felt I had more power to the pedals with these Salsa bars compared to the Mary bars. I need to do some J5-style measuring to see if my bars are the same height as they were before. Maybe they are lower, who knows... it was working...I know that. I was oversteering some in the turns but I think some of that is the bars being a little wider than I'm used to and I'm used to the bigger sweep of the Mary bars which steer differently than straighter bars.

Some more new parts are coming in for the new build. I bought a King headset from Jeff Scott and talked to Ivory at MOAB about a 29er wheel build using my current hubs. I hope I can time it well and avoid some downtime with no bike to ride and avoid having my Quiring frame but no wheels for it.

It was a SS day at AEDC, minus Old Rebel Squishy whose Vassago SS is still "in route". We tried to ditch him, but he kept up:

My Soma 4one5 and Kelly's Vassago Bandersnatch












Chris "Mr. Clean" Cooper's Vassago Jabberwocky


Jeff Scott's bling bling Lynskey